


Smoking Gun

by Plaant



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Emily and Corvo are both marked, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Mark of the Outsider (Dishonored), Post-Canon, Post-Dishonored 2 (Video Game), Post-Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Speculation, ambiguous canon, ambiguous chaos, canon-typical edgy one liners, i had this in my drafts as "top ten bruh moments", novels not included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-01-23 05:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18543118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plaant/pseuds/Plaant
Summary: Somewhere in the Void, Billie Lurk encounters the Outsider in his true form, unobscured by dreams or legends. Some minutes later, every light, flame, and lantern in the universe flickers in unison.Or,What happened to the Marked when the Outsider fell?





	Smoking Gun

**Author's Note:**

> This idea's been bouncing around in my head for a long time. Finally got around to writing it.
> 
> Emily and Corvo are both Marked because only a fool would believe that the Outsider didn't have both of them Marked by the end.

_Somewhere in the Void, Billie Lurk encounters the Outsider in his true form, unobscured by dreams or legends. Some minutes later, every light, flame, and lantern in the universe flickers in unison._

 

\----

 

Corvo had been shot before. He had been shot, stabbed, burned, whipped, cut, strangled, concussed, half-drowned, electrocuted, and poisoned.

 

This wasn't like any of that.

 

It hit him hard, and fast; more like a shockwave than a carriage, more like a lightning bolt than a bullet. There were layers to it -- a slurry of intense, contradicting sensations. First was the stabbing, numbing, and burning in his left hand, all at once, prickling and crackling before travelling up his arm and to his face. With the swell of pain in his hand came a crushing weight in his chest, a self-destruction, folding-in-on-itself kind of aching, where it became hard to tell whether his lungs were collapsed or filled with stones. The force of it all knocked the wind out of him, and he heaved for air through gritted teeth, slamming his fist on the desk at which he had just been reading.

 

Corvo's vision blurred and doubled as something washed over him, or drained out of him. It mirrored the indescribable freedom of Blinking, but reversed and inverted, liquified, enveloping him, like being plunged into freezing water. The Mark, under its covering, felt frostbitten; vicious pain so bad it numbed him.

 

His head pounded, and he tasted Void -- salt, metal, and cold. And _blood._

 

Corvo came out of it slowly, willing his hands to loosen their grip on the back of his chair, not remembering exactly when he stood up. He slowed his breathing, wiped cold sweat from his forehead. His hair was slicked uncomfortably to the back of his neck, and he momentarily regretted growing it out again. He gripped his left hand -- it was still trembling, still cold, the Mark still all pins and needles.

 

Just as Corvo was regaining normalcy, he heard a thumping of heavy footfalls down the hallway, and loud, urgent knocks on his door. Dread replaced disorientation. He swung the door open, and was met with three guards, all looking about a quarter as agitated as Corvo felt.

 

"Lord Corvo, the - the Empress, she -- " one of them stuttered.

 

Corvo pushed past without a word and rushed down the hall as fast as he could, short of running. On impulse, he knocked on the door to Emily's office, before thinking better of it and forcing it open.

 

He let out a sigh of relief upon seeing Emily, alive, facing the windows of her study.

 

"We heard the Empress cry out in distress, so we --" one of the guards shouted as the small squad caught up to him. Corvo raised his hand.

 

"Stand down. It's under control," Corvo ordered. "Leave this to me."

 

He turned to face the guards. They practically cowered at him before bowing. "Y-yes, sir."

 

Corvo pointed behind them, to the stairway. " _Leave this to me_ ," he repeated, forcefully, trying to channel his anxiety into anger. "I don't want any of you snooping outside this room. If I _ever_ hear a _word_ about _any of this_ after today, your heads will roll. Go downstairs and act like none of this happened. Understood?"

 

The guards nodded nervously, bowed again, and hurried away.

 

Corvo slammed the door behind them and locked it, leaving him alone in the room with his daughter.

 

Emily turned to him, arms crossed, brows furrowed. Shaken, but hiding it well. To anyone that wasn't her father.

 

Corvo took a seat on the study's couch. "You felt it too."

 

She nodded, flexing her left hand. It was wrapped in the same navy blue cover as Corvo's; if anybody had noticed her adoption of the strange style since Delilah's brief rule, they hadn't said anything.

 

Corvo hunched forward on the couch, eyeing her hand sadly. They had never talked about it much beyond knowing glances. Not just because of the chaos inherent to fixing the Empire's ruined economy, re-establishing Emily's place on the throne, and undoing months of neglect. Not just because of the Abbey's presence and the fear of being overheard.

 

"I'm sorry," was what came out of Corvo's mouth.

 

Emily looked surprised. "What?"

 

Corvo shook his head, ran a hand through his dark hair. "Nevermind. I just meant, for everything. For all of this bullshit with the Mark. I never wanted it to fall on you."

 

"I guess it just runs in the family."

 

Maybe the remark was supposed to make Corvo feel better, but instead it nearly drove him to tears. He crammed the feeling away, for now, and focused back on the present.

 

Emily paced uneasily, gripping her left wrist. "Has that ever happened before?"

 

"No. No, it hasn't. I've never felt anything like that," Corvo said. "Not when I was first Marked, not when I killed using my powers, not when I fought other Marked."

 

"Do you think one of the other Marked...did something? Who else is there, besides us?"

 

Corvo stared at the ground. "Granny -- _Vera_ is dead and gone. I saw to that personally. You know what happened to Delilah. And Daud..." Corvo thought for a few moments, recalling their encounter all those years ago. "Daud could be anywhere."

 

Emily swiveled her ring around her finger, a fairly recent nervous tic. "There could be others."

 

"Delilah died and came back from the dead without my knowing. This must have been something different. Something serious."

 

There was a minute of silence as they both considered the same question.

 

Emily actually voiced it. "Did...he speak to you recently?"

 

Corvo raised his eyes from the ground. Emily looked back, concerned, like she may have crossed some line. It occurred to Corvo that he had never spoken to anyone -- much less Emily -- about his experiences. She had caught on, of course, especially during the Rat Plague; she would notice when he hadn't slept right, and he knew she had seen the runes. But she had never asked him. And he had never asked her.

 

"No," Corvo said, flatly. "Not recently. The Outsider's strange. I'll see him ten times in a week, then nothing for years."

 

"It was the same for me." She seemed relieved. "I can't say I miss it. Cryptic bastard."

 

"The last time I saw him was at a shrine, about a week after you were back on the throne." He waited for some reaction from Emily, but she seemed more curious than upset.

 

He continued. "I was paranoid, and I felt like I needed to brush up on my abilities. So one night I snuck out and tracked down a shrine."

 

Emily looked at him intently; not confused or worried by his relapse into the occult. If anything, she seemed sympathetic.

 

"And?" she asked.

 

"He said something vague about how my life had calmed down again, and how things were coming to a close. It was unhelpful and condescending."

 

"Normal, then," Emily said.

 

"Nothing about any of this has ever been normal."

 

Emily sighed and gazed out her window over the city below. Silhouetted by sunlight, strong but troubled, Corvo was again struck by how much she resembled her mother. The realization didn't help the ache in his chest.

 

"It was like something got severed from me," she said, almost frustrated, staring at her covered hand. Carefully, she unwound the cloth. "Something feels _wrong_."

 

Corvo watched silently, nervously, as she uncovered the Mark.

His breath caught. "Damn it, is it --?"

 

"Shit, it's _bleeding_ ," Emily swore. Her hand shook visibly as she examined the brand. Centered on on the back of her hand -- familiar but strange sharp lines and curves -- was the Mark, now weeping a small amount of blood.

 

"Are you okay?" Corvo asked, rising from his seat.

 

Emily nodded, keeping her hand at an odd angle to prevent blood from dripping on anything. "It's not as bad as it looks. I just need something to wipe off the excess."

 

Corvo spent a few moments digging through his pockets before producing a handkerchief; Emily took it with a nod of thanks before wiping the blood from her skin.

 

She cringed as the fabric made contact with the Mark. "It _stings_."

 

"How deep is the wound?" Corvo asked.

 

"It's shallow -- just the top layer of skin is gone," Emily said, finishing a rudimentary cleaning of her hand. The Mark was still dark against her light skin, but muddied somehow, and seeping.

 

"By the Void," Corvo muttered. He rarely used such swears -- they always felt slightly too ironic for him -- but, watching his daughter bleed from an arcane brand "gifted" by the Outsider himself, it seemed appropriate.

 

"What do you think this mean?" Emily asked, re-wrapping her hand in its previous cover.

 

Corvo sighed, crossing his arms. "I don't know, but I don't like it."

 

He thought carefully for a few moments, pacing, flexing his fingers. His Mark was likely bleeding too, though he wasn't keen to check until he had some extra bandages on hand. He wanted to brush all of this off as irrelevant to him now, with the empire back in order. But he knew he couldn't. Even if he swore off using magic, it was still a part of him; it was still a part of _Emily_. Trying to ignore it hadn't worked before, and to believe it would work now was foolish. Whether they like it or not, they were bound to this.

 

Corvo stopped pacing. "I'm going to try using my powers." He met eyes with Emily before she could protest, "To see what happens."

 

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked.

 

"No," Corvo said, making a small, purposeful gesture with his left hand.

His dark vision activated, turning the world monochrome while lighting Emily up like a beacon.

 

Instead of the expected tingling, pulsing energy from the Mark, Corvo's hand turned numb and cold. There was no quiet incantation in his head, no subtle vibration of contact with somewhere beyond the physical -- only an eerie, solitary silence. Pounding pressure developed behind his eyes as something in him strained itself to exhaustion. His vision through the walls and floor wavered, overlapping and alternating with reality at irregular intervals; his heart thumped in his chest and throat and ears on a crescendo as the heightened awareness threatened to overwhelm him.

 

Corvo ended the spell early, coming out of it with a gasp. His eyes cleared and color returned to the room.

 

Emily stared, concerned, at his half-outstretched arm. "You're bleeding."

 

He hadn't noticed it during the spell, but he certainly did now: warmth trickled from under his hand covering, staining the dark blue fabric and dripping down his fingers. Corvo retracted the hand immediately, holding it close to his chest, careful to keep blood off his clothes.

 

"Did that just happen?" he asked, beginning a search around the room for another rag.

 

"Yes, while you were...using your powers," there was hesitation there, as Emily decided whether or not to name the ability, "it started to bleed."

 

"Hm, as though the glowing wasn't obnoxious enough," Corvo muttered. The Mark continued to buzz, but the excessive bleeding stopped quickly, leaving the trails to dry on his hands.

 

Emily opened some cabinets, looking for spare towels or linens. "Did you find anything out?"

 

Corvo studied his Marked hand carefully; seeing it covered in blood again was unnerving. The deep red had seeped through the wrap enough that a muddled outline of the Mark was visible in the stain. Somewhere, something ached.

 

"Something has happened," Corvo half-answered. "To the Void, or to the Outsider, or to the whole world. Wherever it was -- whatever it was -- it was major. It seems like it's disrupting how the Mark functions."

 

Emily handed him a small cloth. "I see." There was the slightest edge of displeasure in her voice, likely aimed at the continued nebulousness of any and all answers.

 

"I don't know that there's anything we can do about it, even if we wanted to -- or had time to," Corvo continued, attempting to assuage her annoyance, "but I'd advise against using any powers. At least for now."

 

"As though it's something I do on a regular basis," Emily retorted.

 

"I don't claim to know what you get up to in the late hours of the night these days, but I have certain memories of you hopping rooftops while the royal guards thought you were safe in bed," he reminded her. "I know how much easier that is with help from the Void."

 

"That was years ago. I've had enough rooftop hopping to last me a lifetime," she lied.

 

Corvo decided not to pursue that line of inquiry -- at least for now.

 

\----

 

Corvo dreamed of the Void that night.

 

He'd walked in the Void many, many times, for many, many reasons. Sometimes the Outsider spoke to him; sometimes he did not. Tonight, it seemed, was the latter.

 

Corvo had seen the Void in many different states, as well. In the beginning, as a chaotic, depressive realm of disjointed fragments of his waking life. Later, as dark and imposing, full of sharp, jutting black rocks and weight in the air. And now....

 

Now, there was nothing. He stood alone, on a floating platform of obsidian. There were no whales in the distance, no ruined buildings, no directionless streams of water. He didn't feel the pull of any runes or any significant spaces. The only other physical matter was small chunks of rock barely within Blinking distance, but they stretched out aimlessly in all directions, leaving him no path to traverse. The air was not cool nor warm, not dry nor wet. It was neither weighted nor light. It no longer harbored any trace of salt, brine, or wind.

 

Corvo looked to his hand and saw rather than felt the unreasonable gush of blood from the Mark as it spilled on the ground and his clothes like an opened artery. It burned, and Corvo was overwhelmed with the compulsion to _move_.

 

He obliged, dazed, Blinking to a nearby rock. The Mark pulsed blood, and for a few seconds -- a few minutes? -- his perception split to where he _was_ and where he _had been_ and every spot in between -- he saw himself, mid-movement, confused, covered in blood, and, bizarrely, weeping.

 

Corvo slammed back into himself on the rock he had aimed for, struggling to catch his breath from the impact. Still, in all directions, there was nothing -- one uniform deep blue, with no up or down. As empty as it was, there was _something_ there; something large and deep, moving, like a creeping darkness on the edges of his vision, an intangible force roiling the space around him. The emptiness was vast to the point of seeming hungry, chewing on Corvo, testing him, licking the blood from his hand and the tears from his face, worrying him like a starved dog on gristle.

 

Amidst it all, Corvo remembered Jessamine's voice, distorted by her incorporeal form and the hand of the Outsider, but unmistakable; something the Heart had told him over a decade ago: " _Someday, this place will devour all the lights in the sky._ "

 

\----

 

The Mark had stopped bleeding when Corvo woke up.

 

The following day, it started to itch.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always welcome.
> 
> hmu on tumblr at plaant.tumblr.com


End file.
